


A Responsibility of Care

by Huggle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilty Odin, Guilty clint, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Thor, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Tony Stark, Worried Nick, Worried Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:56:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: Odin comes to Earth when Thor is injured, and takes the opportunity to seek out the man his son almost destroyed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a while back, figured it was time to post it (mainly because Thor's on the telly just now). Could be taken as a prequel to Linger of sorts.

They’d never seen Thor like this – feverish, delirious, struggling beneath the sweat soaked sheet.

His father was holding him down with little effort, while his mother pushed his hair away from his face. 

“The curse will pass soon, Thor,” Frigga said. 

“You were wrong about him,” Thor muttered. He grabbed his father’s hand where it was pressed against his chest. “He deserved a chance. He could have been a good king – he would have taken care. But you were right about me.”

“Hush,” Odin told him. “We agree that I was wrong about one of you.”

+++

Steve had escorted him from the infirmary after that. Wordlessly, seeing into him like he was just cut open and everything – every fucking thing he kept pushed down – was just all out on display. 

Clint said nothing, let Steve guide him. He focused on just putting one foot in front of the other; he didn’t even have to worry about banging into anyone because anyone who saw them coming just seemed to get out of the way.

Two decks down, Steve got him to sit down on a bench at the back of the range. He came back a moment later carrying the black case that held Clint’s bow and arrows. He put it down next to him, rested a hand on Clint’s head for a second, then left.

Clint picked up the case, and put it down on the prep table at the back. He opened it carefully, took out his glove. He slipped it on, and stretched the dark cloth from the case across the table top. He took out the sections of his bow carefully, laid them down piece by piece. 

He stared at them for a moment, how precisely they were set out. Then he began to assemble it, fingers deft and practised. He’d done this under many conditions. Once with dislocated fingers when there was just no other choice. Once when a particularly close call had left Natasha in post-op and he’d gone straight to the range, and hadn’t known that he was bleeding from a deep slice in his back until Bruce ordered Thor to carry him – actually carry him – to the infirmary.

He put on the quiver, adjusted it, and stepped up to the line. He notched an arrow, set it loose, saw it fly home and embed itself dead centre. He drew another, waiting for the target to disgorge the last before he fired again.

+++

Fury watched over the monitor as Clint let an arrow go again and again and again. He’d exhausted the supply in the quiver, restocked it, and started over.

“This? You think this is healthy?” Hill folded her arms.

“I think this is none of your business,” Tony snapped. “You do this a lot? Spy on people with PTSD?”

“Like you don’t,” Hill retorted. “You probably have cameras in every room at the Tower. Don’t taint us with your voyeuristic streak, Stark.”  
Fury silenced them both with a look; he wasn’t surprised it worked on Hill, but he knew it if wasn’t for the constant _thwack thwack thwack_ of Barton’s arrows hitting home it would have taken a tazer to shut Stark up.

“Let’s pretend – try hard – that this is a grown man you’re talking about. A trained SHIELD specialist. Who does not belong to you, Stark, regardless of the living arrangements you’ve foisted on the team.”

Tony huffed, started to bite back, but Fury got to his feet.

“And who probably would not like any of us spying on him.” Because Stark was just possessive-obsessive enough (and Fury knew his streak ran to protective not voyeuristic) to have cameras everywhere.

“While he has a nervous breakdown,” Hill said.

“Which won’t happen on my watch,” Tony returned.

Fury let them snipe. He watched as Clint stopped shooting, turned around to face the man who’d just joined him on the range.

Sometimes it took someone a little more distant from the situation to see best how to solve it.

He turned off the monitor, and waited to see if he would have to physically separate his second in command from the biggest ego in the universe, even if he hadn’t decided yet if he actually would.

+++

“You have skill at that,” Odin said.

Clint paused, unsure of the etiquette for dealing with a god. Odin made a small ‘continue’ gesture so he went with it. Kept pace, arrow, notch, draw, fire. Normally the rhythm helped ground him. He could lose himself to it and everything else that was scrabbling about in his head got shoved down.

Today, it was shoving back.

He could feel Odin’s stare on him like a physical thing, heavy and forceful. Clint wondered what he must look like, standing here, drowning on dry land and unable to do anything to save himself. He didn’t know how many other people saw it, but somehow he knew that Odin did.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He lowered the bow, squeezed his eyes shut, felt something tight harden around his chest. 

“Please,” he started. “Please, can you-”

He jumped when strong hands took the bow from his grasp, and set it down on the floor. The quiver was next, Odin undoing the buckled strap from around him and putting it down as well. He took Clint’s hand, removed the glove and dropped it to the floor.

Clint stood there, muscles strung out and useless as Odin did all of it. When the Asgardian put his hands on Clint’s shoulders, he suddenly found strength and tried to step back.

“No,” Odin told him, and there was just an edge to his voice. “Don’t try to fight me.”

“Like I could,” Clint grated out. “I’d really like you to let go of me.”

Odin stared at him, his face grave. “It may be what you’d like, but it isn’t what you’d need. People have been letting go, giving you distance. And this is the outcome. What you need is for someone to hold on.”

“Someone holding on to me is what started this.” Tight, implacable grip on his wrist, just before all the cold in the universe got inside him and everything became defined by it.

Odin didn’t look away. “Do you bear the scars of it?”

Clint tried to tug free but it was token. Until Odin decided to let him go, he was going nowhere. Help was near, he knew it – Steve could probably talk Odin into releasing him, or Fury could order him. Bruce was two decks up looking after Thor in the infirmary which meant Hulk could be down here in the seconds it took for him to tear through two floors. Not what Clint wanted, but then neither was this.

He was tired of people doing things to him that he didn’t want.

“If I say yes - that’s what you want to hear, isn’t it – then you can take your hands off of me? Sir?”

Odin didn’t let go. He took Clint in with his stare, and Clint had never felt so open or exposed. It took everything he had not to cringe away, to stand there and meet the gaze head on. 

“Do you?” Odin said, again. His grip on Clint’s shoulders tightened minutely, and Clint thought _fathers are the same everywhere I guess_.

“He didn’t leave a mark on me. Sorry to disappoint. Don’t you think you should be with Thor? Sir.”

Odin stepped back; his face darkened briefly, then he turned and was gone.

+++

For the next two days, the SHIELD helicarrier was a little crowded. Agents and techs and pilots and specialists mingled uneasily with armour clad Asgardians, and Fury had Steve keep one or two Avengers there as a peacekeeping force.

The odd scuffle born of territoriality and the sheer difference between them all did occasionally break out, but on the whole they were all professionals and so being a human buffer wasn’t such a chore.

Steve tried to leave Clint out of the duty, but he went anyway. He wasn’t going to spend his life flinching whenever someone in armour walked towards him.

And being around Thor helped. 

He stood now, watching from the Eyrie, as Thor took his first steps on to the flight deck. He was leaning on Frigga, and she was strong enough to keep him steady as he took a breath and stared out across the water.

There were three Asgardian soldiers with them, but Clint was responsible for their safety here and he had Thor and his mother covered.

He waited a few moments to see if Odin was going to speak to him or just stand there and stare at his back.

“He’s almost back to normal,” Clint said, finally, when he got tired of being watched.

Odin came forward, and stood next to him, resting his hands on the ledge. “I had intended to take him home, but he did not wish to go. The rest of us will leave tomorrow; your Director Fury will no doubt be happy to see us depart.”

Clint nodded. “Ecstatic, probably.” 

He noted that Odin was right next to him again. Which left him with a choice of stubborning it out and staying where he was, or stepping very obviously out of his reach.

“I know very little of what Loki did,” Odin said, after the silence became too heavy – for him, Clint supposed. Personally, he would have preferred it to what he knew Odin was building up to. “Thor won’t speak of it, and few of your people seem able to look up from the floor when I ask them anything.”

“You’re a god,” Clint said. “Bumping into one in a corridor is not an everyday occurrence around here. Until Thor turned up.”

Odin gave a conciliatory nod. “You don’t seem to want to speak of it either. And yet you said you bear no marks.”

His hand was on Clint’s shoulder again, suddenly. Clint closed his eyes. “What, you want to check? What is it you want me to say here?”

“I want to know what my son did.”

“And I heard what you said to Thor. I don’t know what went on between you both, and that’s your business. But I think you want me to tell you things that will make you feel justified in hating him. Find your own reasons. I’ve got mine, and I’m working right now.”

He should have expected it, but Odin had him by the shoulders again, turned him away from the ledge.

“I can’t protect your wife and your son if you’re holding me back,” Clint said. “And I’d hate to have to yell and cause a diplomatic incident.”

Odin glared at him. “My wife and son are in no danger, and your monster would pose no threat to me. I pose no threat to you. So you don’t need to yell.”

Clint stared back at him. Fine, if Odin wanted warts and all. “He put his hand on me once. After that, he didn’t need to. I was his. He didn’t even need to tell me what he wanted me to do – I’m good at my job, I knew how to get him where he wanted to be – actually that’s not exactly true. He knew when I was tired and wouldn’t stop and he told me to get some sleep. Watched and made sure I did.

“And when I hadn’t eaten for eleven hours, he made me sit down and take something. And when my migraine started, he did something to send it away. I don’t know what and I haven’t had one since.”

He stopped, unable to say anymore because he was suddenly unable to breath. He grabbed at Odin’s arms, held on, because everything was starting a slow spin around him. But Odin had him, lowered him down carefully to sit and lean back against the Eyrie ledge. 

“You would have preferred it if he had hurt you?” Odin said, after a moment.

Clint let his head slump back against the metal wall. “He did hurt me. He took everything I am and skewed it for his own purpose. And it’s the purpose I was made for, just ... not his.” 

They sat in silence for a while, until Clint knew someone would realise he was not where he was supposed to be, or one of the Asgardian delegation came looking for their leader. He got up and reached down to help Odin.

It was instinct, but Odin let him.

“It’s custom on Asgard to right wrongs,” the god said. “And yet I have no idea how to compensate for what he did to you.”

Clint frowned. “We’ve had two discussions about this, and neither of us has said his name. If you work out how to fix what happened, you can let me know.”

Odin put his hands on Clint’s shoulders again. This time he didn’t have the same urge as before to pull away, fight off the contact. He met Odin’s stare willingly, not out of some defiance. 

“He would have broken a weaker man,” Odin said. “Hold to that, to the people you did manage to save in the end. The people you still will because you survived him.”

“I don’t know that I have, yet,” Clint said. “Jury’s still out.”

If Odin was confused by the reference, he gave no sign. He moved his hand to settle against Clint’s neck, firm fingers finding his pulse. Then he motioned to the bow propped against the wall of the Eyrie. “You’ve survived.”

He stepped back, gave Clint a last look, then retreated to the door.

“Nobody knows how things will turn out,” Clint called after him. “We have a saying on Earth – the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s what you had at the start – when you saved him.”

Odin paused in the doorway. “It’s unfortunate Loki didn’t feel the same. Goodbye, Clint. Perhaps one day Thor will bring you to Asgard. Until then.”

Clint waited there until Thor and Frigga also went back inside then went to check in his bow.


End file.
